Dawn eBook

CHAPTER LI

On one point, however, Angela’s efforts failed
completely; she could make no headway with her father.
He shrank more than ever from her society, and at
last asked her to oblige him by allowing him to follow
his own path in peace. Of Arthur’s death
he had never spoken to her, or she to him, but she
knew that he had heard of it.

Philip had heard of it thus. On that Christmas
afternoon he had been taking his daily exercise when
he met Lady Bellamy returning from the Abbey House.
The carriage stopped, and she got out to speak to him.

“Have you been to the Abbey House to pay a Christmas
visit?” he asked. “It is very kind
of you to come and see us so soon after your return.”

“I am the bearer of bad news, so I did not loiter.”

“Bad news! what was it?”

“Mr. Heigham is dead,” she answered, watching
his face narrowly.

“Dead, impossible!”

“He died of enteric fever at Madeira. I
have just been to break the news to Angela.”

“Oh, indeed, she will be pained; she was very
fond of him, you know.”

Lady Bellamy smiled contemptuously.

“Did you ever see any one put to the extremest
torture? If you have, you can guess how your
daughter was ‘pained.’”

Philip winced.

“Well, I can’t help it, it is no affair
of mine. Good-bye,” and then, as soon as
she was out of hearing; “I wonder if she lies,
or if she has murdered him. George must have
been putting on the screw.”

Into the particulars of Arthur Heigham’s death,
or supposed death, he never inquired. Why should
he? It was no affair of his; he had long ago
washed his hands of the whole matter, and left things
to take their chance. If he was dead, well and
good, he was very sorry for him; if he was alive,
well and good also. In that case, he would no
doubt arrive on the appointed date to marry Angela.

But, notwithstanding all this unanswerable reasoning,
he still found it quite impossible to look his daughter
in the face. Her eyes still burnt him, ay, even
more than ever did they burn, for her widowed dress
and brow were agony to him, and rent his heart, not
with remorse but fear. But still his greed kept
the upper hand, though death by mental torture must
result, yet he would glut himself with his desire.
More than ever he hungered for those wide lands which,
if only things fell out right, would become his at
so ridiculous a price. Decidedly Arthur Heigham’s
death was “no affair of his.”

About six weeks before Angela’s conversation
with Mr. Fraser which ended in her undertaking parish
work, a rumour had got about that George Caresfoot
had been taken ill, very seriously ill. It was
said that a chill had settled on his lungs, which
had never been very strong since his fever, and that
he had, in short, gone into a consumption.

Of George, Angela had neither seen nor heard anything
for some time—­ not since she received the
welcome letter in which he relinquished his suit.
She had, indeed, with that natural readiness of the
human mind to forget unpleasant occurrences, thought
but little about him of late, since her mind had been
more fully occupied with other and more pressing things.
Still she vaguely wondered at times if he was really
so ill as her father thought.